Jiang Chuan, the most prolific spiker and the second best scorer of the Volleyball Nations League’s inaugural edition in 2018, is back to captain China in the upcoming VNL 2023. A long list of 28 national team athletes was announced by the China Volleyball Association on Tuesday.
The 28-year-old 2.05m-tall opposite has not played in a world-level competition since 2019 and the last time he captained China was at the 2021 Asian Championship, where the team finished on the podium with bronze. Jiang was not part of the team in either VNL 2022 or the 2022 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship.
Head coach Wu Sheng’s 2023 selection features as many as 11 of the 14 players who represented the country at the most recent competition, last year’s World Championship in Poland and Slovenia. That number includes 27-year-old setter Yu Yaochen, who took over from Jiang Chuan as the team captain, and 23-year-old 2.07m-tall outside hitter Zhang Jingyin, who took over from Jiang Chuan as the team’s leading scorer.
